Such is Time: Future Tense
by Nighthowler
Summary: The conclusion!! Revelations and answers can spring from the strangest of circumstances and events. Is knowing the answer enough, though?
1. Default Chapter

TITLE: 'Such is Time: Future Tense' 

AUTHOR: Kathleen E. Lehew

CHARACTERS: Josiah Bartlet. Sorry, that's all I can give you without spoiling it ;-)).

SPOILERS: Goodness me, yes! General, from season 1 through to the beginning of season 3. There are direct dialogue quotations from the episodes 'Proportional Response', 'Two Cathedrals', and 'Manchester, Part One'. There is also a direct quotation from another source, however you're going to have to wait till the closing Author's notes on that one.

SUMMARY: This story takes place sometime during the events depicted during 'Two Cathedrals', and 'Manchester, Parts One & Two'. A great deal went on that night, not the least of which was a storm as backdrop to doubts and fears. It was a long road to renewed determination and conviction, but he found it.

DISCLAIMER: Of course they're not mine G. So any lawyer-type persons out there, please settle down. I'll give them back when I'm done, promise. The surrounding words, however, are mine. Caught them and beat them into submission myself.

FEEDBACK: It would be appreciated, really, either here or at nitehowl@livingston.net.  As an author, this is an entirely new style for me, one I've never tried before, and I'd appreciate knowing if I managed to pull it off or not. 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'd like to dedicate this exercise in words to Anne, Nomad, Amanda/MAHC and SheilaVR, all of whom in their own way have both encouraged and inspired me to attempt this. I'd especially like to thank Sheila, whose patience and forbearance as an editor/beta reader cannot be measured, and whose efforts have kept me from mauling the English language anymore than I already have. Thank you, all.

That said, no more notes or mea culpas. However, check out the closing Author's Notes accompanying part two of this story. A few more points and questions raised here will, hopefully, be made clear.

For now, onward…

'Such is Time'

**~*~**

**Future Tense**

**By**

**Kathleen E. Lehew**

_Even such is Time, which takes in trust_

_   Our youth, and joys, and all we have;_

_And pays us but with age and dust,_

_   Which, in the dark and silent grave,_

_When we have wandered all our ways,_

_Shuts up the story of our days:_

_   And from which earth and grave and dust_

_   The Lord shall raise me up, I trust._

From _Even Such is Time              _

Sir Walter Raleigh: _1552 - 1618_

**The White House; Washington D.C.**

A battle was raging outside. 

Staring out the blurred, rain spattered window, he ignored the cynical voice of his own thoughts, and listened instead to the wind as it whistled hauntingly round the building's corners. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the glass pane in front of him rattled ominously. Hands clasped behind his back, blinking myopically through his spectacles into the murky darkness, broad shoulders tensing with each crack of lightning, he considered the implied irony and wondered if God were indeed baiting him.

Like the storm, the question hammered at him. There were two wars, two battles being fought this night. Nature and the elements had their playground and their conductor. Who then was conducting the battle he was about to fight with his own body? Or his own fears and doubts?

Stubborn to the last, he had absolutely no intention of permitting himself to negotiate a surrender, either to the roar of the cascading storm, or the mocking voice he could hear directing them. Grimly silent, and already sensing the coming defeat, he was painfully aware that it always started out that way. Defiance for him was easy, even when the opponents were beyond his reach.

_A late summer flu, that was all it was._

He did not find that thought satisfying, or very convincing. It was not that simple, not anymore.

He knew the signs, the harbingers of what was to come. First came the chills, then the descent into mind-numbing fever and uncontrollable shivering. He knew them all. The body he had struggled all his life to hone and preserve would fail the battle and refuse his commands. In this he knew his authority to be worthless.

Seething with a helpless rage tinged with humiliation, he regarded it all as the ultimate treachery. A betrayal he could not combat nor could he defy. Where was the lesson in that? The answer came before he finished the question. 

_Pride goeth before a fall._

And the Good Lord knew he had pride. A cold shudder spread through him, caused equally by insistent memory as much by current physical failings. He realized penitently that many had quietly, and with humility he lacked, pointed this out to him, even his beloved wife. The iron control and dynamic conviction with which he ruled those around him always failed him in this. It was arrogance, pure and simple. So sure of himself and his rightfully earned place to reign, to dominate, he forgot the lesson.

Nothing had been _earned this time, either by strength of mind or his own convictions. Death had given him this moment, this chance to rule as so many, himself included, had seen as the inevitable future. The future had come, but not as foreseen or even desired, not like this. If he hadn't earned it, what was left?_

That evening, Senator Hanna, always moon-eyed and now ancient and weighed down with recent sorrow, had told him a truth. The warning was no less grim than the first time he had issued it all those terrible days ago. _"Do not think anything about a second term."_

A second term. _This term, beginning a new millennium, unearned and with death and sickness as markers, had barely begun, yet already that specter of defeat left a bitter taste in his mouth at the possible ending. An ending he did not and _would_ not choose. _That_ was the future these messengers trumpeted._

If there was no future, why even bother to fight? His first instinct had always been for combat, but faith and conviction could only take you so far. If defeat was indeed inevitable, why bother to even try?

He squeezed his eyes shut, impatiently trying to pull his drifting thoughts together. Was that the lesson? If so, he wasn't listening. Stubborn and prideful to the last, he never did. 

And as had happened before and would no doubt happen again, the Good Lord in his divine wisdom had sent him a reminder. He would vow to remember, to never forget the brush with mortality that so often laid him low. He could admit that truth graciously, if not humbly. It wasn't in his nature to be humble, even before God.

A wry, twisted smile accompanied the memory and the admission. Lightning flashed, soon followed by the rumble of thunder, serving only to punctuate the bitter truth. The Divine knew him all too well. He never remembered the vow or the lesson, only the fight. And he so loved a good fight. A pity he had never learned to be as gracious in defeat as he was in victory.

_The Almighty knew that, too. Turning abruptly away from the window, he laughed that short, snapping bark of mirth he knew so irritated those around him. It lacked dignity, or so those who dared make the observation to his face had told him. Few did._

_'And where,' he bitterly wanted to ask those nay-sayers, __'was the dignity in this?'_

He had never asked the question aloud, and therefore never received an answer. Not even from God. If the thunder and lightning raging outside were the answer to that silent query, he refused to listen. He would suffer alone and leave cryptic responses where they belonged: outside.

_A summer flu._

An empty plea, and with it the last traces of resistance vanished.

Starting to shiver with the beginnings of fever, bone-weary with fatigue from the fights he'd won or lost this day, and those he dared not yet contemplate, he turned down the covers of the bed and carefully lowered himself onto the edge of the soft mattress. Removing his spectacles and laying them with a shaking hand on the corner bed stand, he pressed both hands over eyes that burned with exhaustion. This battle had yet to begin and already he felt drained, hollow and empty. Losing battles had never been his forte, and he knew with embittered certainty that this war was already lost.

This time he didn't laugh at the thought. He couldn't. There was nothing left. Not even that odd sense of humor, equal parts puzzling and annoying to those around him, could find purchase on this.

With a long, weary sigh he lay back against the pillow. His hand strayed to the empty space next to him, listlessly searching for a warm and loving presence, a comfort that was not there. He ached at her absence, and a shiver spread over him as he remembered. _Sagamore Hill. She and the children were home, waiting for him._

He was alone.

Her face haunted him as he closed his eyes. Her smiles, serious or thoughtful, brought him some small comfort. He clung to the memory as the first waves of the coming storm broke over him. Perhaps the simple thought of her would keep the nightmares at bay, drive away the doubts clouding his certainties. It never had before, but he always hoped.

_'Let the future take responsibility for itself, and damn the rest.'  The thought came easily. At this moment in time, tired of losing battles posterity would never know or understand, he could no longer find it within himself to even care._

Punctuated by the mockery of the thunder, it was his last waking thought before he drifted off into troubled sleep.

~*~

Rain lashed madly against the bedroom window.****

Staring blankly at the phone in his hand, he was so tired his nerves throbbed, pounding in rhythm to the headache that threatened to split his skull. He tried to cling to the pain, but it proved a poor anchor, unable to hold against the tides of exhaustion and fatigue that drained what little vitality he had left. _Who was he going to call anyway? There were no secrets anymore. _

And what difference would it make?

Even the sound of the storm still raging outside failed to rouse him from the creeping numbness that weighed him down, body and soul. There had been too many fights today, and all of them of his own choosing. Weariness, along with a hint of something more dire and familiar, enveloped him as he struggled to concentrate, tried to remember why he had chosen this particular battle when it would have been so easy to let it go.

Admitting the truth to himself, if not others, was easy. _Pride, fueled by stubborn anger. _And perhaps it was because it _had been his choice, a battle he had some small chance of winning. He could fight it standing on his own two feet, not laid low and helpless as a child by a menace he couldn't even see. It allowed him one last tattered shred of dignity at least._

Collapsing onto the edge of the bed, his fingers tightened convulsively around the phone still clutched in his hand. Finger hovering hesitantly over the button that would instantly summon help, he wondered again why he didn't call, what was stopping him. It had taken him long enough to learn the intricacies of the intercom system. It was all so very simple, even if the choice wasn't. Why didn't he call?

_It was only the flu._

A short, bitter laugh and he idly wondered how often he could repeat that thought and make it be true. It was never _only _the flu, not anymore. He'd lost that excuse along with any comfort he might have claimed from it years ago. All too quickly he'd found himself flung back to earth from the heights of vain self-importance, humbled by a mortality he had never truly contemplated.

_Arrogance and pride. Had he truly been guilty of those sins? Or had the Divine simply been hedging his bets, weighing the future against lessons that needed to be learned before the actual choices were made. Pride he had already admitted to, but arrogance? When had he been guilty of that failing? If this were indeed a lesson, he would have dearly loved to feel he'd earned it. _

He had never dared ask why, then or now. The author of his current predicament might answer, and right now neither of them were exactly on civil speaking terms. He could be humble before God, but not shamed. Was a little dignity too much to ask for?

A crack of vicious, condemning thunder rumbled through the building, emphasizing the point. Shaking his head, he smiled ruefully, admitting finally to the conceit. God was hardly subtle when making an argument. Perhaps it was arrogance. So much had been given to him, and so much taken away, he too often forgot the true lesson.

_Thou art mortal._

For the third time he dropped the phone back on to its cradle, refusing to call. Mortal he may be, but this battle belonged to him, and to God. They didn't need an audience. And he was tired of the looks; the questions hovering unasked like a death shroud, suffocating him. Those around him may know the truth, but they didn't understand. How could they? Besides, if he called, would she come?

He wasn't so sure of that anymore. The space next to him on the bed was empty. It was late, and she still hadn't returned. From where? He didn't know and was too exhausted to even contemplate. The events of the day were a twisted, confused mess. All he could remember was the condemnation in her eyes when last they'd spoke.

_Spoke? He laughed aloud at that thought, shivers of chill and fatigue accompanying the harsh sound. A mocking peal of thunder, commentary he could have done without, only made it worse. They hadn't spoke, they'd fought, using coldly civil words as weapons. His memory of her face was pure and painfully clear. She had thrown her words at him like stones, her flashing eyes conveying the betrayed anger that sharpened those verbal edges with deadly accuracy. _

His wife had wanted answers, and he had none to give, only his own belligerent silence. That silence had stretched until it had become unbearable. Was it arrogance that left him unable to explain, to give her answers to questions that he himself hadn't truly asked? Trapped by his own lie, he'd taken the coward's way out, and said nothing.

And the lies only grew. Running his hand across his forehead he could feel the perspiration, the beginnings of yet another lie. _It was only the flu. _That was an excuse he wouldn't be able to use anymore, not that he had very many left to use. That particular bag was empty. 

He had felt listless all evening, muscles aching along with the dull pain in his back that never seemed to subside; no matter how many pills he took. It was his own fault really, that spark of conceit and vanity that made him stand in the rain, hurling his anger into the storm while it raged around him. He had so wanted a fight, and since God was the only one to show, he'd stood his ground and let his mortal fury have reign.

No umbrella, no coat. Nobody had dared question him or insist on protection from the elements. They wouldn't even dare look him in the eye. He'd charged alone into a future as dark as any without purpose or guide. Only his anger led the way, the ultimate conceit. Was his anger enough of an excuse for what he'd done?

_"Yeah," he'd told them, driven by a cold fury that drowned the voice of his own conscience. Arrogance had made him add, __"And I'm going to win."_

He had chosen that battlefield, but now didn't have the will to continue. Even current victories seemed hollow by comparison. _She _wasn't here.

He was alone.

Swallowing against the rising nausea in his stomach, giving in to the sickness, he sighed heavily. Just punishment divinely wielded for the sin of arrogance? He gave a choked, desperate laugh. Or was it the ultimate conceit to even suppose that God had even noticed the transgression?

_Why bother fighting at all?_

Tempted, he stared once again at the phone. It would be so easy to call, to let them all know he'd failed again. Failed them and failed himself. There was nothing to hide behind anymore. He was tired of fighting, bone-weary of the never-ending battle and he didn't want to be alone.

Reaching for the phone, he hesitated. Closing his eyes, he found the dignity and the will to resist. A last spark of defiant anger lent him further strength and he pulled his hand away. _Not this time_. There was only one person he wanted to be with right now, and she wasn't here. The one person he didn't want to fight, and she was a no show. Pride alone kept him from begging.

_It was only the flu._

Like hell it was.

He lay down, throwing an arm across his eyes and letting the exhaustion take him as his head sank on to the pillow. _'Screw the future, let it come.' _He wondered briefly if he should feel some guilt over the relief he felt. No more fighting, no more battles; just this last, faceless opponent. It was over. He'll apologize to her tomorrow; tell his wife it was all a mistake. If God wanted to pick a fight over that, let him.

_"You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that."_

He pulled his arm away from his eyes and stared at the ceiling. A phantom of the mind, or a spirit in truth? Had that really happened? Memory or guilty conscience, he wasn't sure anymore. Intellectually, he knew that she could not have, but she'd never been one to leave him to wallow in his own self-pity before, so why should death have been a barrier? Did the reality even matter? It was what she _would have said._

_"But if you don't run, 'cause you think it's gonna be too hard, or you think you're gonna lose... well, God, Jed, I don't want to even know you."_

The disappointment so apparent on her face, so familiar, fevered imagination or not, for a short time had been enough to galvanize action. Anger had been the fuel, all too quickly exhausted. It wasn't enough, not now.

_Too hard... _

He was through fighting. Mortal or Divine, the battles would continue without him. At this moment he wanted nothing more than to command his own future, no one else's. Let history or posterity be the final judge. Tomorrow would find him alone. If tomorrow ever came at all. At this moment, he wasn't even sure if he cared whether it did or not.

Burned into his mind, his wife's face was the last thing he saw as he drifted off into troubled sleep. It was a vain hope, but his last waking thought was that perhaps her memory could keep the nightmares at bay.

He could no longer hear the thunder.

_To be continued…_


	2. Part Two

TITLE: 'Such is Time: Future Tense'

AUTHOR: Kathleen E. Lehew

Part 2/2

Thunder or gunfire?

There had been a time when he could tell the difference between the two, even in dreams. Or the difference between the howl of the wind and that of the dying. The memory was always the same. Squinting up the hill, blinded by a high noon, tropical sun, he'd known then that victory would come with a price. Life and death, everything had a price. Even the eager youth he'd been had known the consequences, but the glory of righteous conflict had drowned the voice of reason. Maturity had taught him that Kettle Hill and the unending stream of leaded rain from the defenders on top had demanded and claimed its payment in blood and tears.

_What price victory? It had been all that mattered to him then, glory and conquest. Now all he could remember was the blood. _

Tossing on the bed, bathed in sweat and shivering uncontrollably, it was a price he was still paying. He'd never been able to escape that irony. The sickness had begun there, brought back by a hotheaded volunteer, one who gloried in the rush of righteous conflict, who had been foolish enough to believe the battle cry that had begun it all.

_'Remember the Maine!'_

A groan escaped his lips, eyes darting feverishly beneath closed lids and trying to escape the dream. Fever wouldn't let him. True consciousness remained beyond his grasp and the nightmare held fast, always the same. The dead, the dying, and the bitter question that age and maturity hadn't allowed the eager youth so ready to throw his life away for mere words.

Words. _Remember what?_ What had it earned him, or the poor country he and his men had fought for? That his men had _died_ for? The troops were still there, so many years later. One yoke for another. One failure for another, and all for vengeance. One more stroke of the pen for history and posterity to ponder, leaving the one who had lived it to _relive it over and over in fevered dreams. Triumph turned to dust by the question allowed only now, when doubt and failure were left with no conscious barriers._

Punishment?

The nightmare and the guilt never changed. _Why? _

Thunder and the howl of the wind, that was all he had now. Vaguely, drowning in memory, he heard the creak of hundred-year-old timbers as the building stood before the elemental onslaught outside. Still, he didn't wake, tossed by storms of his own making. Another defeat, one even now his tortured mind was beginning to acknowledge as perhaps being just, if not mocking. Neither waking nor asleep, a strangled sound, almost a laugh, escaped his lips. 

Who was he to even dare question this play's author?

The fever jumbled thought and memory, stealing one from the other and creating images of what never was, things he couldn't remember. Blood, sweat, pain, and the howl of the wind intruding. Thunder became gunfire and mortars. Explosions became the crack of lightning, immediately accompanied by a booming rumble that rattled the windows.

Thunder, ever intrusive, became the slamming of a door.

Footsteps in the room.

Gasping, he almost awoke at that, but couldn't bring himself out of the quicksand that held him down. _A door? Footsteps? Someone was here, with him in the room._

Where was William? He knew to keep everyone away, couldn't he see? Surely he knew? Impotent fury fought with humiliation that anyone would see him like this, helpless. He tried to open his eyes, to roar his protest at the invasion of what little privacy he had left, but failed. He flung out an arm, felt the dull pain as his hand struck the corner of the bed stand.

Still, the sharp pain was not enough, and he didn't wake.

_"What do you need, Leo?" _

_"Well..."_

Voices he didn't know; the boom of thunder, or the slamming of another door? 

_Who?_

_"... you've gone through everyone who works for you, and everyone who's married to you; I didn't know who else you could get mad at, so I was afraid the American people might be next..." _

Thrashing his legs, tangled in the covers and trapped, he struggled to form William's name, to open his eyes. Nothing would obey his commands. The sickness had stolen that last vestige of dignity from him. 

Not a dream then, it couldn't be. Even through the fever, the ringing in his ears and the gasping of his own labored breathing, the voices were too clear, so full of anger and recrimination. _They didn't belong here, should not have found their way past the guards, past his secretary. _

Strangers, like the madman who had found _his way into history and brought him to this place, this _unearned_ moment._

_"Did you know that two-thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words 'Civis Romanus' - I am a Roman citizen..."_

The sense of danger, of violation, remained. But the pitch of that voice, full and rich with a righteous anger he recognized, captured him. This man could _speak_. The sound rose with the wind, fell and became a part of it, indistinguishable.

_Who were these people? Why were they here? A groan escaped his lips. They didn't notice, didn't stop. That voice, growing in strength and fury, held him fast._

_"... So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens..."_

Clutching the blankets to his chest, this time he recognized the lightning, saw the bright flash from behind closed lids. He heard the thunder that followed almost immediately after, shaking the building to its foundations.

_They didn't hear._

_He didn't notice. Full of mounting rage, barely contained, that voice continued..._

_"Where is the retribution for the families? And where is the warning to the rest of the world that Americans shall walk this earth unharmed, lest the clenched fist..."_

Over the roar of the storm, the crash and conflict of the elements, he heard the distinct sound of flesh striking flesh. The sharp smack of one hand slamming another, giving physical form to rage and words. It's what _he _would have done; hold an audience with the dramatic and the visual. This man was speaking of vengeance, retribution for deeds done in the name of anarchy. He _knew this, recognized the contained fury._

_He was speaking of death. It hovered over these men, as it hovered over him. It burned through his veins and wracked his limbs with pain. _They _brought it with them, he was sure of it now._

Or had it not ever left? Where did fever dreams end and reality begin?

_"... of the most mighty military force in the history of mankind comes crashing down on your house! In other words, Leo, what the hell are we doing here?"_

Fever raging through his body unchecked, he went as still as the sickness would allow him. How could they not see him? _He was speaking of war, demanding it. Bathed in sweat, hands twitching at the blankets, he wanted to shout the answer, what experience had taught that young, glory seeking fool so many years ago. It had taken him too many years to learn that lesson. History and retribution, old and new, posterity remained the only judge, the harshest one of all._

_'Remember the Maine!' Empty words that earned nothing in the end. _Vengeance_, hot or cold, had earned him and his men just as little._

There is no glory in war, couldn't he see that? Why didn't he see that?

_"We are behaving the way a superpower ought to behave."_

The other voice. 

That one saw, _that_ man understood. Beneath the words he didn't quite understand, the emotions hardening his grating tones that merged with the siren song of the wind, he heard the echoes of war. This man had _seen_ the cost and paid some small part of his own soul to survive.

_Was that me?_

Despite the pain twisting his limbs, the echoes of mortar and gunfire tracing his own memory, he fought through all to listen, to urge them on. This was wrong, didn't belong here or now. The nightmare, for so he now recognized it to be, had become an imperative, anarchy's advocate.

Death was in the words. Names, places he didn't know, dead and dying that had nothing to with him. Why then the rage? Why the need to fight, to join in when only hours before he'd been willing to let it all go? He wanted to cry out, to shout to these strangers, these children of his own fevered doubts and conscience, that _nothing,_ not even the ghosts of history were worth that price.__

_"And you think ratcheting up the body-count is gonna act as a deterrent?"_

_"... damn right..."_

A mighty crash of deafening thunder, directly overhead, drowned out the rest, or became a part of it. He could no longer tell. Across his closed lids, he felt the drip of sweat, felt the heat of his own flesh as it burned from within. This dream he didn't know, this _ending had no purpose save only to torture him with his own failings. _

But still, body thrashing his protests, he listened, tried to separate nightmare from reality. The storm continued to mock, stealing those words he desperately needed. The validation was here, a reason to continue to fight and _earn_ what had been given him.

Was that the lesson? But what fight, what battle should he choose?

_"And this is good?"_

_That voice again, the one who understood. He grasped at it, held it firm and away from the storm's greed. His! Full of authority and rage, demanding what? Vengeance? Retribution? Nearly desperate, he listened for the response, muddled thoughts no longer caring about reality or the vague twistings of fevered dreams and imagination._

Justification was here, from his own tortured mind, and he craved it, _needed_ it like the glory he had sought so many years ago. There was a chance to earn something here, though he wasn't sure what.

Or truly, whether the end result, the future he'd abandoned, would be worth the effort to _change_.

_"Of course it's not good; there is no good. It's what there is. It's how you behave if you're the most powerful nation in the world..."_

His labored breath caught in his throat.

Is that what he craved? Power? What lesson was this?

_"It's proportional, it's reasonable, it's responsible, it's merciful..."_

Reasonable.

Merciful.

An answer.

_"It's what our fathers taught us..."_

"Enough!" 

He wasn't aware that he'd bellowed the word, lurching up in the bed and shouting it to the empty room. One last crack of lighting flashed almost angrily, its light flickering through the darkness. The thunder, far distant now and almost apologetic, came as a feeble after-thought.

Was the room empty?

Blinking uncertainly, his myopia never more a burden than it was now, he instinctively reached for his spectacles on the bed stand. Fumbling in the darkness, he found them. Starting to lift them to his eyes, he paused, and then looked dumbly at his hands. He swallowed hard, a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the sickness that had been coursing through his body and mind gripping him.

They weren't shaking. His hands were _not shaking._

They _should _be shaking.

Hands trembling now, but for a much different reason, he slipped the corrective lenses on to the bridge of his nose. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, astonished that he was even able to do so, he searched the room almost belligerently. Corner to corner, every shadow, he looked, and found nothing.

Nobody was there.

What else had he expected? Already, the memory of the voices and their words were fast fading. Figments of the sickness and the heat. Fever and dreams, the price paid for youthful glory, the phantoms had been the creation of his own tortured mind. They had to have been; there was no other logical explanation. He was sure of that, and his barked laugh, he knew, was the only real sound other than the now distant roar of the storm.

_'Now what,' he wondered, __'would an alienist have made of that?' _

Not that he ever really wanted to know the answer to that. Many questions deserved answers, but not this one.

Perhaps in the future...

A tentative knock on the door, and breaking with newly made protocol and old habit; William Loeb poked his head into the bedroom. "Mr. President?"

Normally, he would have bristled at the intrusion, the _rudeness_ of it, even from such a trusted servant as this. Perhaps it was the concern on the younger man's face, true and uncomplicated by gain, which cooled his famous temper.

Waving a perfunctory hand, he allowed his secretary the moment and urged him to enter. "Yes, William?" He blinked against the sudden glare of the electric as his secretary turned on the lights.

"I thought I heard..."

"Heard what?" The question was sharper than he'd intended. A slight twinge of guilt as he saw the man flinch at the demanding tones. He almost smiled. Wasn't Edith the one always telling him to control himself? Still, he left the question hanging.

Shuffling uneasily, the secretary to the President of the United States answered as best he could. "Nothing, sir. With the storm… I thought I heard you cry out."

One brow rose. "Really?" A smile tempered that retort, just a bit. And then a huffed chuckle, warmly given. "And were you hovering just outside the door?"

Loeb was used to the abrupt changes of mood as well as the sarcasm. The humor? He wasn't sure he would ever figure that out. Relieved though, having suspected the worst, he asked the question that had far too much hidden meaning, "Are you well, sir?" He knew that was an inquiry more often than not guaranteed to ignite this man's not inconsiderable wrath.

Not this time. Where he had expected a glare of indignant affront, he received instead a long, steady unblinking stare of confusion. Loeb watched with some concern as the President's head went to one side, as he searched inward and took stock of his own condition. Sheer incredulity quickly replaced the confusion that had recently clouded the keen eyes behind those spectacles. 

Bracing hands on his knees, the President stood up. Surprised at the strength in his legs, when experience with this infernal sickness had taught him so often before that a newborn kitten could best him, he paused to consider, head characteristically still to one side, for just a moment before answering. "I believe I am." He didn't try to keep the astonishment he felt from his voice, or the subtle hint of gratitude. "What time is it?"

"Just after six in the morning, sir."

Glancing out the rain-smeared window, he could just see the beginnings of dawn's light creeping over the district buildings silhouetted on the horizon. Dawn? Already? Holding out his hands, he looked down and stared at them with bewildered awe. Rock steady, not one twitch or quiver.

Careful of his spectacles, he put one hand to his forehead, and then ran it through his short hair and down the back of his neck. Dry, no perspiration or heat. Only a hint of damp from the night's battle remained. A conflict he had won or lost? 

That remained to be seen.

"Remarkable," he muttered.

"Sir?"

The decision, the command, was easy. "Coffee, William."

Loeb sighed, shaking his head. "Sir, your wife..."

"My wife," he grinned, clicking his teeth together on the last, "is not here. _You_ are, and we have work to do."

"May I ask what, sir?"

He looked back out the window, searching through his now awake mind for the words he had heard or imagined. They danced just beyond reach, already lost to him. He knew now it made no difference if they had been real or not. Reality had no bearing, not now. Along with the sickness, their order and the voices that had spoke them were fading. Perhaps as it should be.

But there had been a truth, one he recognized. With that, he reclaimed that love of conflict, the sense of purpose he'd been missing. There would be a war, a new kind of conflict where blood, perhaps, was not the only price paid for victory. It would be glorious indeed, and deserving of this new century.

Deserving of _him._

"It's what our fathers taught us," he said softly, wondering where those phantom words had originated, and watching the sun clear the tops of the far buildings. A new dawn, a new beginning.

One he was going to _earn._

"Our fathers, sir?" Loeb was confused, and not for the first time. One of the few who could keep up with this man, counter his restless energy, the rapid pace of his mind still more often than not left him behind.

"All our fathers, William." Where had that come from? He could not remember, but knew in his heart that it truly no longer mattered. "All of them."

"Yes, sir." Straightening his shoulders, Loeb grinned. It was subtle, but something had changed. He hadn't been the only one to notice how withdrawn the man had become after taking the oath, then the long funeral procession for his predecessor. No one had dared voice the concern aloud, though. "How can I be of service?"

"Japan and Russia." Another decision, another step.

"There's going to be a war, sir." Loeb sighed heavily. The entire world knew there was going to be a war. The carcass of China and Manchuria were only the tip of the imperialist contest going on in Asia.

"Or so they think." That smile, feral, quick and combative, flashed across the President's face. "While you're at it, everything you have on Cuba and combines."

"Morgan, sir?" Loeb asked uncertainly. He hadn't expected this. Taking on entrenched colonialism was one thing, but the masters of industry and John Pierpont Morgan as well?

"If we're going to stand between the Russian bear and Japan, and withdraw American troops from Cuba, we may as well take on combined industry as well."

Loeb blinked. "All of it, sir?"

"Of course." That voice rang with confidence.

"This morning?"

Something indefinable passed across the President's features, and he said softly, "Time, William. We have very little of it, and must use it wisely. All of it must and _will _be in my address to the Senate and the House. See to it."

The abrupt dismissal was accompanied by an encouraging smile.

William Loeb, secretary to the President of the United States, nodded and stepped out of the room.

Hands clasped behind his back, shoulders straight, he watched quietly as the door shut behind Loeb. Senator Mark Hanna's voice returned to him then, his warning clear and concise. The old order putting the new in its proper place. 

_"Theodore," he had said, despite his recent and overwhelming grief still managing to look both grandfatherly and condescending at the same time. _"Do not think anything about a second term."__

The gauntlet had been thrown to the ground at his feet, and he had almost refused to pick it up. 

It was a possible future, but one he no longer feared or doubted. Reasonable, responsible, and above all, merciful, it was a fight worth the effort. Worth _his_ effort, a victory earned through conviction's effort, not blood. Did it matter where the words came from, or how? Too many questions had already been asked this night, and he was afraid that one more just might be pushing what little luck he had left.

He smiled, directing a bit of self-mockery into his thoughts, and conceded that a quiet visit to an alienist was not completely out of the question.

The youth he had been might not recognize the glory of the coming battles, or even the shadowy opponents that stood before him, but perhaps the future would. He _did_ so love a good fight, and this one promised to be one posterity might even take notice of.

The final echoes of a storm long gone as accompanist, the first words of his planned address formed then, pulled from that newfound sense of purpose. Did it really matter where that purpose arose from? Nightmare had become a dream of war. A new kind of war, and one he had no intention of losing. 

_The Congress assembles this year in the shadow of a great calamity..._

Good words that acknowledged doubt and fears, leaving them outside with the past where they belonged. More would follow, of that he had no doubts, not any longer. He waited a moment then, expecting comment or more mockery from God. But what had begun with uncertainty was now greeted with a new dawn, one to be shaped.

If he was lucky.

"Think nothing of a second term, old man?" he growled at the shade of Mark Hanna, eyes narrowed and snapping his jaw shut on a predatory grin. "I will think what I wish, do what I wish. Watch me change the future."

Perhaps one last bit of commentary, a rumble echoed off in the distance. To his ears, it sounded almost like approving laughter.

Somebody, he knew, liked having the last word.

But not this time.

"And I'm going to win."

~*~

_"It's what our fathers taught us..."_

"Leo!"

He was up and off the bed before he'd even been aware or conscious enough to command the action. Instinct drove him, from where or what he didn't know, couldn't think. Escape was the imperative. Legs tangled in the twisted covers, he tripped and fell to one knee, catching himself with a grunt on outstretched arms. 

Breathing heavily, head bowed and feeling the last of the dream fade, he tried desperately to hold on to some aspect of the images, some meaning behind their appearance and order. Why this sense that someone had been watching? His scattered thoughts refused to find purchase on the questions, or even to know if asking the questions would serve any purpose.

Nothing came; only a single, distant rumble of receding thunder came as answer.

Why that one, that memory? Of all that could have been dredged up from what he laughingly referred to as his subconscious, why _that moment? So many meanings in such a simple phrase. So much anger…_

_"It's what our fathers taught us."_

 "Oh, Leo." He lifted his head, blinking uncertainly and pushing himself to his feet. Grimacing at the effort, and the memory of what _his father had taught him, he said softly, "If you only knew."_

The hubris of that thought struck him like a blow, shamed him.

Leo McGarry _did_ know the cruel lesson of fathers and sons, the disappointment of empty battles with no hope of approval or acknowledgment. Had that been what he'd meant all along? That violence begets violence with no hope of a decent resolution? Was that reason enough to attempt anything? To do what was _right?_

Did the perceived failure justify quitting without even trying?

Standing there, he suddenly realized how empty a gesture it all was. It wasn't what his father had wanted. It wasn't what Leo wanted of him. It wasn't what his wife, for all her absence and painfully directed anger and accusations tore at his heart, wanted or demanded of him. Perhaps she had some justification for her feelings, but _not enough to direct his path. _

The future, whatever it may bring, belonged to him alone, nobody else. Anger simmered at that thought, for the first time directed outwards at _them_, their expectations and illusions instead of inward to past failures that no longer had any bearing. He'd almost lost it, that sense of conviction that had come with the beginnings of the storm that had now passed with heated dreams into the distance.

It had all begun with the phantom of a memory.

"Do you still want to know me now, Dolores?" He whispered the question, the only one worth asking.

No answer, not that he'd really expected one. Still, he knew what she'd say, and that was approval enough.

Then an amazing thing occurred to him.

He was standing.

Running a hand that trembled only slightly through damp, tousled hair, he let it rest at the back of his neck. Cool and dry, not a hint of fever or sickness. A deep breath, then he took a step, then another. No pins and needles, no dizziness or nausea. He let out the breath he'd been holding with a huff of surprise. Even the dull ache in his back and muscles was gone. Not exactly what he'd expected of the night, or what earlier doubts and fears had led him to believe he'd deserved.

"Remarkable," he muttered, giving the discovery, and perhaps its Author, proper due. Although he had to ruefully admit that Abbey was always telling him that the disease that dogged him had no rules, made them up as it went along and coursed through his nervous system.

_It was only the flu._

Apparently not, although he wasn't going to complain. He felt quite certain that asking the _why of this one would be pushing his luck. _

He nearly jumped as a knock came at the door. Clearing his throat somewhat self-consciously, he called out, "Yeah?"

The door creaked as it opened and Charlie Young stepped cautiously into the room. "Mr. President?"

Clearing his throat, the President fought through the still clinging cobwebs of troubled sleep and nightmare. He caught himself glancing uneasily about the room, not quite sure exactly what he was looking for. "What can I do for you, Charlie?" he asked, hesitating only slightly and hoping the dry humor of his tone hid the confusion he still felt.

Face carefully neutral, the President's body-man glanced pointedly at the tangled blankets, all both half on and half off the bed. The evidence was clear. "I was going to ask you that, sir." The unasked question contained a wealth of meaning and concern.

"I'm fine." And for the first time in a long while, he actually believed it. "What time is it anyway?" he asked, and then he paused, an unaccustomed sense of deja vu taking hold at that question. Puzzled and disconcerted, running a hand absently through his hair, he turned away, gazing about the room and its shadows.

Searching for what?

Young either didn't catch the reaction, or chose to ignore it. "Just after six, sir."

Dawn already? He moved towards the window, watching the sun and its creeping ascent over the lawn and buildings in the distance. "Did you get any sleep?"

"Probably as much as you did." While the response was dry, Young didn't add that he hadn't even bothered to go home to bed in the first place. When the President chuckled softly, he knew that the man fully understood what hadn't been said. Still, a sense of relief washed over him at the jovial sound and he relaxed. 

For the first time in weeks, Young felt a sense of future that for so very long had been missing. "Can I get you anything, sir?"

"Just the day's schedule, Charlie." Something, he didn't know what, made him add, "And some coffee."

Sighing heavily, Young shook his head. "Sir, the First Lady..."

He turned abruptly away from the window, eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Your wife, sir?" What had he said to prompt that flash of almost trapped bewilderment in the man's eyes? "She..."

"Isn't here." He blinked slowly at an echo of faded memory, or was it nightmare? It darted away before he could catch it. "She isn't here."

Alone…

"Sir?"

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes against the ache and repeated softly. "She isn't here." Something indefinable danced just beyond his mind's reach. Opening his eyes, he clasped hands behind his back and returned to the window, and the dawn bringing color to the darkness outside. What was he missing here? Or maybe it was this, "You _are here, and we have work to do."_

Straightening his shoulders, Young grinned. "Yes, sir."

"It's not going to be easy." Memory and doubt wrapped around those words, triggering... _something._

_"... Do not think anything about a second term..."_

A second term? Who had said that? The President blinked slowly, struggling for a memory that refused to be cornered. Fading and clouded, nothing remained to grasp. All that was left, growing stronger by the moment, was a sense of determination he thought he'd lost.

"I didn't expect it would be easy, sir," the President's body-man was saying. Young knew for certain it wasn't going to be, not for any of them. Subpoenas and hearings that would seemingly never end. But for now, it didn't matter. _He,_ this man, was ready. "Will that be all?"

A grunt of distracted dismissal was all he received in response. Quietly and without another word, he left.

Hearing the door click shut, left alone once more, the President continued to stare out the window. Sunlight glittered through the antique glass, creating a waking dream of the color and images he could see through the water dripping down the outside. Cause and effect, dreams could be like that. For that dream, he was prepared to fight, and for the first time in a long while he was looking forward to it. Odd feeling that, this dream of conflict.

Far off, just within hearing, a fading peal of thunder gave one last rumble.

He laughed, sensing no mockery. Was that the last word? Another in his place, he knew, would allow the Director this final word. 

Not this time.

"I'm going to win." He knew it to be true.

If it was arrogance, so be it. If it were pride, then too, he'd accept what might come of it. In this, there was only one judgment he would accept, when it came. The choice, as it always should have been, remained his. New choices for a new millennium, and be damned to the past. It was going to be a good fight.

Let posterity and history be the last witnesses.

The End 

CLOSING NOTES:

A short history lesson, so bear with me.

On September 6, 1901, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot and mortally wounded President William McKinley as he attended a public reception at the Temple of Music. Despite early hopes and fervent prayers for his recovery, McKinley succumbed to his wound eight days later in the Ainsley Wilcox residence, Buffalo, New York.

At that same residence, witnessed by McKinley's cabinet, a few others and presided over by John R. Hazel, U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of New York, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt took the Oath of Office on September 14. Only 42 years of age at the time of his inauguration, this youngest of all Chief Executive's acceptance speech was, and still remains, the shortest in U.S. history. 

One of the attendees, Senator Chauncey M. Depew (R, New York) later observed, _"I have witnessed many of the world's pageants in my time; fleets and armies, music and cannon. But they all seemed to me tawdry and insignificant in the presence of that little company in the library of the Wilcox house in Buffalo."_

Those solemn nine days leading up to his taking the Oath, and during McKinley's funeral procession, were the most troubling and difficult of Roosevelt's remarkable life and career. Never one to suffer from a lack of conviction or courage, observers and those closest to him saw a man who was alternately determined to make his mark on the office and the country, and weighed down by sudden bouts of depression and nearly crippling self-doubt.

This all changed by the morning of September 16, 1901. No more doubts, and perhaps feeling 'bully' - yes, indeed, he did enjoy using that exclamation G - a President truly took charge that day, and the country and the world could not help but to stand up and take notice. On a truly terrible note, the old world and century had given way to a new one.

Here endeth part of the history lesson, but with just a few more notes. Then I'll let you go ;-).

It is here, during this time of personal uncertainty that I chose to place this exercise in literary 'possibilities'. Given the personal and political troubles being suffered by a certain fictional President, similarities between the two men - one I've always suspected Aaron Sorkin is very much aware of G - and a remarkable duality of time - the advent of two new centuries, the 20th and the 21st, thank you Mr. Sorkin! - attempting this 'slip' in time has always been at the back of my mind.

I couldn't find any weather reports for the day, so the storm is completely invented. But hey, who knows.

A love of National Parks - Roosevelt was instrumental in creating the system and coining the word 'conservation' - an 'odd' sense of humor - _"One must always remember,"_ Senator Mark Hanna was once heard to say of Roosevelt, _"that the President is six." _- a love of trivia and history, personal integrity and conviction. The loyalty of the people who surrounded and served both men, and their determination to be instruments of social and political change despite nearly overwhelming obstacles, mark both the fictional and the historical. 

There are many, many more connections and similarities, but for now I'll leave you with just these.

Despite a sickly childhood, Roosevelt was a remarkably active and healthy adult. He did, however, suffer from recurring bouts of chronic malaria. Whether it was contracted while serving in the Spanish American War or later in life during a trip to Brazil and the Amazon with his son, just before his death in 1919, is up for historical debate. For the purposes of this story, I've chosen the former. The memoirs and observations made by his long-time personal secretary William Loeb, Secretaries of State John Hay and Elihu Root, would seem to indicate that during his two terms of office, Roosevelt did collapse on a number of occasions of 'fever and chills', often delirious for days at a time. This may be apocryphal, but it suits my purpose here.

Multiple sclerosis or chronic malaria, for either man the flu was not quite so simple a malady.

Kettle Hill or San Juan Hill? Oh, boy! So much for the U.S. education system and the perpetuation of 'myth' ;-)). But then, Roosevelt himself deserves some blame for this oft-repeated mistake. Aaron Sorkin is not the only storyteller who can't quite keep his facts straight, fictional or otherwise. He's keeping good company G.

There was no charge up San Juan Hill by either Roosevelt or the Rough Riders. Given the supporting role on the assault of Kettle Hill, and 'after' the other regiments were pinned down, Roosevelt and his men took the initiative and the heights of that hill, not San Juan. They then turned their own guns, and the captured machine guns of the Spanish defenders, down the ridge connecting the hills to San Juan and supported the regiments attempting to take that hill under heavy enemy barrage. Eventually, they did 'charge' up San Juan in one last assault, but the heights had already effectively been taken.

For his bravery and courage, Theodore Roosevelt was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor, over one hundred years later. Due to some injudicious remarks made in dispatches and on the battlefield - even then, the powers that be in the military hierarchy were 'prickly' to the extreme, something Josiah Bartlet has learned as well ;-) - the citation and award were effectively shelved till January 16, 2001, when then President William Jefferson Clinton corrected the mistake, albeit posthumously. Better late than never, I suppose.

Theodore Roosevelt, throughout the rest of his life, never once failed to honor and salute the memory of the men he served with, what he called his most 'crowded hour'. However, in his own memoirs, letters and the observations of others, there is a strong hint of 'What for?' in his reminiscences. That U.S. occupying troops were still there so many years later, and to even the most cynical viewer it was becoming apparent that Cuba's sad economic and political future might already be written, shadowed his thoughts. I've chosen to play with this just a little bit, poetic license if I may.

Even the impending war and negotiating a peace between Japan and Russia occupied his early administration - it was finally resolved in June, 1905, during his second administration, and oddly enough the meeting between the combatants took place in Portsmouth, New Hampshire - for which Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

We can also blame President Theodore Roosevelt for opening and strengthening the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague, which, though it was established in 1899, had pretty much just been sitting there for the first three years twiddling their international judicial thumbs. So, if President Josiah Bartlet eventually has to deal with the Shareef issue - with Leo, Fitz and Nancy in tow G - you can bet this current trivia/history buff is going to be giving a few choice words to his predecessor.

And that concludes the history lesson, I promise.

Like I said, there are a great many more similarities between the fictional and the historical with these two men, but for now I'll leave you with just this and let you alone. I hope you enjoyed both the story and the history lesson - I've been told, not TOO unkindly, that I missed my calling as a teacher ;-) - and try and figure out, maybe, how to do it all again.

Thanks for your patience.

Oh, and the final disclaimer. Along with the episode dialogue, I used some direct quotes in this story and author's notes from the truly excellent bio of Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, 'Theodore Rex'. If you want to explore the life and two terms of office of this remarkable man, I highly recommend it as required and entertaining reading. For his earlier life, the same author and 'The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt' is a must as well. For further torture, if you're so inclined – I was sigh - the Library of Congress wouldn't hurt either.

Thanks again.


End file.
